Campaigns On Facebook Vary To Assure Earned Media

According to a recent Wildfire analysis of over 10,000 social media campaigns to see what types of campaigns generated the most earned media, the most entered campaigns are not the campaigns that
generate the most earned media, or sharing activity. Certain campaign application types generate higher entry and participation rates (contests and sweepstakes for example), while other types are more
likely to be shared via a news feed post or an invite to the app (pick-your-favorites, quizzes and trivia).

When 68% of Facebook users say that a recommendation from a Facebook friend
would make them more likely to buy a specific product or visit a retailer, however, brands want all the earned media they can get, says the report.

Promotions are one of the most popular
marketing methods on Facebook whether sweepstakes, contests, or coupons and more. The study reports a number of actionable results for social marketers, including the types of social marketing
campaign that tend to get the highest participation rates, the different campaign types that get the highest sharing rates, and the common thread among campaign types that generates the most sharing
with friends on Facebook.

In addition, other key findings from the study include:

Coupons, giveaways, and sweepstakes get the highest amount of entries on average.

“Pick-your-favorites,” quizzes and trivia that get the most shares by users, thus creating more earned media for the brand.

The campaign types that generate the most earned
media are those that allow users to reveal personal preferences, tastes or opinions to their Facebook friends. These include pick-your-favorites, quiz and trivia applications.

People are
equally as likely to enter contests and sweepstakes whether they heard about them directly from a brand or from a friend’s post. In other words, where a user learns about a contest or
sweepstakes within Facebook does not impact the likelihood they will enter it.

The earned media generated by users sharing to their networks about interactions with these apps resulted in a
significant conversion of new users— in other words, the earned media is working. For example, 82% of the users that clicked on a friend’s news feed post about a quiz they’d taken
went on to take the quiz themselves.

On average, coupons, giveaways, and sweepstakes get the most entries and Facebook engagement. These campaigns are closely correlated with low
barriers to entry (as in a sweepstakes), high-value perceived rewards (as with coupons), and the popularity of a “sure thing” (as with giveaways).

Most Entries And Facebook Engagement (What types of campaigns get the most entries?)

Campaign

Average Entries

Coupon

3,037

Giveaway

1,888

Sweepstakes

1,630

Favorites

1,070

Quiz

1,024

Trivia

410

Essay contest

398

Photo contest

381

Video contest

318

Source: Wildfire, May 2012

When earned media is the focus of the
analysis, an entirely new set of high performing campaign types emerge, with an interesting commonality. The campaigns types that are most “shareable” are campaigns that include
“pick-your-favorites,” quizzes, and trivia.

The most-shared campaign applications are designed to either:

Allow the user to discover an aspect of his personality of
which he was previously unaware

Display facets of his personality that he knows about and wants to share

Most “Shareable” Campaigns (Rate of sharing by campaign type)

Campaign

% of Respondents Selecting

Pick your favorites

39%

Quizzes

32

Trivia contests

29

Sweepstakes

26

Essay contest

25

Photo contest

25

Coupons

19

Giveaway

15

Video contest

11

Source: Wildfire, May 2012

The most important question of all, says the report, is whether or not the shares generated by users
get additional new users to engage with the branded campaign too. The analysis of earned media’s ability to draw additional users into engagement with a brand showed positive results:
“pick-your-favorites,” survey, and quiz campaigns (that appear in users’ news feeds) have a high chance of being seen and clicked on by their friends.

The study reveals that 82% of the users that click on a news feed post, shared by a friend who took a quiz, will go on to take that quiz themselves.
This indicates that when a user’s attention is piqued by the news feed, the engagement potential is very high.

Earned Media Click-To-Entry Conversion Rate (When a user clicks on earned media, how often do they go on to enter the campaign
themselves?)

Campaign

% Entering Campaign

Pick your favorites

27%

Quizzes

82

Trivia contests

69

Sweepstakes

66

Essay contest

47

Photo contest

23

Coupons

74

Giveaway

74

Video contest

13

Source: Wildfire, May 2012

The report says that earned media can account for up to a 12% boost in engagement rates, which means viewing,
clicking and participating with a campaign.

Way too many holes in the overall picture Jack. When I go to a Brand page and check engagement rates per post I see 0.05% to 0.1% of total fans and usually towards the low end. So boosting 0.05% by 12% for earned media is not very good.